Review of 2021 Census Topics

Response 797136495

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What is your submission about?

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Topic name
As we become a more culturally diverse society due to the impacts of permanent and temporary migration we need to continue to expand the Census indicators in relations to cultural diversity.

Choose your area of interest

Please select one item
(Required)
Population
Sex and gender
Households and families
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Income and work
Unpaid work and care
Education and training
Disability and carers
Housing
Location
Transport
Ticked Cultural diversity
Religion
Other topic

Topics on Cultural diversity

Choose one or more of the following topics that relates to your submission

Please select all that apply
Australian citizenship
Country of birth
Country of birth of parents
Year of arrival in Australia
Main language other than English spoken at home
Proficiency in spoken English
Ancestry
Ticked Other/unknown
If other please specify
Visa type

Assessment Criteria 1

1. This topic is of current national importance.

National Importance
Visa type data (permanent or temporary) is essential for policy development, planning and research purposes. As in many other OECD countries, the scale of temporary migration in Australia continues to grow. At any given time there are up to 600,000 temporary entrants in Australia (McMahon, Moreton, Luisi, 2010) dwarfing the annual migration intake which sits around 190,000. The main temporary visa categories are skilled, students and working holiday makers. Tourists fall under a different visa category. While the Department of Home Affairs does publish limited data on these arrivals, population Census data is needed to track and monitor these temporary residents for researchers and policy makers with a significant proportion of temporary entrants becoming permanent residents after a period. This stronger evidence base is one of the recommendations in the recent inquiry Migrant Intake into Australia by the Productivity Commissionin (Productivity Commission, 2016).

Assessment Criteria 2

2. There is a need for data from a Census of the whole population.

For whole population
The value of this is through combining temporary resident data with other characteristics including:
• Sex and gender
• Households and families
• Income and work
• Unpaid work and care
• Education and training
• Disability and carers
• Housing
• Location
• Transport
• Cultural diversity

Assessment Criteria 3

3. The topic can be accurately collected in a form which the household completes themselves.

Easy to answer
There are hundreds of temporary visas. However, visas can be categorised according to lay understandings and be easily answered by respondents. Do you have permanent residency in Australia could be a threshold question.

Assessment Criteria 4

4. The topic would be acceptable to Census respondents.

Acceptable
There would need to be some level of assurance that the data was not being shared with the Department of Home Affairs.

Assessment Criteria 5

5. The topic can be collected efficiently.

Collected efficiently
As above

Assessment Criteria 6

6. There is likely to be a continuing need for data on this topic in the following Census.

Continuing need
The topic of temporary residents is likely to continue to be relevant as time goes on. More and more people are migrating temporarily as part of the globalisation of business and education.

Assessment Criteria 7

7. There are no other alternative data sources or solutions that could meet the topic need.

No alternatives
The only alternative is Department of Home Affairs reports.

Any further comments?

If you would like to tell us anything else about your submission, please comment below.

Further comments
Tourists should be specifically categorised in this data collection.